in ruthlessness and it was no doubt immaterial to their flattened victims that one steamroller wai; smoothly oiled while the other was roughly clanking.
‘Of course,’ Constantine said, his face filling with anger. •Wilton Young.’
‘The two men didn’t have Yorkshire accents,’ I said.
‘What’s that got to do with it?’ Constantine demanded.
‘Wilton Young makes a point of having Yorkshiremen working for him. He looks down on everyone else.’
‘Arrogant little pipsqueak,’ Constantine said.
‘I can’t honestly see him taking such trouble to stop Mrs Sanders giving Nicol a horse for his birthday.’
‘Can’t you?’ Constantine looked down his nose as if he could believe half a dozen more improbable things before breakfast. ‘He’d do anything he could think of to irritate me, however petty.’
‘But how could he have known I was buying the horse for Nicol?’
He took barely three seconds to come up with an answer. ‘He saw you at the sales with Kerry, and he has seen her at the races with me.’
‘He wasn’t at the sales,’ I said.
He shrugged impatiently. ‘All you mean is that you didn’t see him.’
I doubted if it were possible to be in so small a place as Ascot Sales’ paddock and not know whether Wilton Young was there or not. He had a voice as loud as Constantine’s and a good deal more piercing, and he was not a man who liked to be overlooked.
‘Anyway,’ Nicol said, ‘I’ll bet his bloodstock agent was there. That carrot-headed little Yorkshireman who buys his horses.’
I nodded. ‘So was your own chap, Vic Vincent.’
Constantine had nothing but praise for Vic Vincent.
‘He’s bought me some great yearlings this time. Two he bought at Newmarket last week… classic colts, both of them. Wilton Young will have nothing to touch them.’
He went on at some length about the dozen or so youngsters which according to him were about to sweep the two-year-old board, patting himself on the back for having bought them. Vic Vincent was a great judge of a yearling. Vic Vincent was a great fellow altogether.
Vic Vincent was a great fellow to his clients, and that was about where it ended. I listened to Constantine singing his praises and drank my champagne and wondered if Vic Vincent thought me enough of a threat to his Brevett monopoly to whip away any horse I bought for the family. On balance I doubted it. Vic Vincent looked on me as Wilton Young looked on non Yorkshiremen: not worth bothering about.
I finished the champagne and found Kerry Sanders watching me. For signs of alcoholism, I supposed. I smiled at her and she smiled a little primly back.
‘Kerry my dear, you couldn’t do better, another time, than to consult Vic Vincent…’
‘Yes, Constantine,’ she said.
From Gloucester to Esher I thought about Frizzy Hair a little and Sophie Randolph a lot. She opened her door with the composure all in place and greeted me with a duplicate of the Gatwick kiss, cheek to cheek, a deal too chaste.
‘You found me, then,’ she said.
‘How long have you lived here?’
‘Just over a year.’
‘So you weren’t here when I used to race next door.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Come in.’
She looked different. She was wearing another long dress, not white and black and silver this time, but a glowing mixture of greens and blues. The cut on her forehead had crusted over and her system had recovered from the state of shock. Her hair looked a warmer gold, her eyes a deeper brown, and only the inner self reliance hadn’t changed a jot.
‘How’s your arm?’ I asked.
‘Much better. It itches.’
‘Already? You heal fast.’
She shut the door behind me. The small lobby was an offshoot of the sitting-room which opened straight ahead, warm, colourful and full of charming things.
‘It’s pretty,’ I said, and meant it.
‘Don’t sound so surprised.’
‘It’s just… I thought perhaps your room might be more bare. A lot of smooth empty surfaces, and space.’
‘I may be smooth but I’m not empty.’
‘I grovel,’ I said.
‘Quite right.’
There were no aeroplanes on her walls, but she wore a little gold one on a chain round her neck. Her fingers strayed to it over and over again during the evening, an unconscious gesture from which she seemed to gain confidence and strength.
A bottle of white wine and two glasses stood ready on a small silver tray.
She gestured towards them noncommittally and said, ‘Would you like some? Or don’t you ever?’
‘When Crispin is drunk,’ I said, ‘I drink.’
‘Well, hallelujah.’ She seemed relieved. ‘In that case, take your jacket off, sit on the sofa, and tell me how you